I’m not sure why heavyweights so often serve as punchlines in MMA. Wait, yes I am.
A large man with a prodigious beer gut earns a judo brown belt, a black belt in the school of hard knocks and a job bouncing drunks, catches an MMA fight on late-night TV, and the rest is history.
This is especially true in the Wild West days of MMA. That’s really the golden age of hilariously bad heavyweights. Yes, of course there are many great heavyweight athletes. It’s just that the boundaries of fitness are a notch or two looser in the biggest division. For every Cain Velasquez or Cheick Kongo, there’s a guy puffing around the cage like a minor character in a James Joyce novel.
Awful heavyweights, for all you do, this little slideshow here is for you. What follows is the Mount Rushmore of the worst MMA heavyweights of all time. Except there’s five of them instead of four, and no mountainside could ever hold them.
Three simple ground rules. First, you need at least three professional MMA fights on your record. Second, you need at least one professional fight after the introduction of formal weight classes. Third, you need to have fought in a major league promotion; the more major league you were, the better.
Oh, and one more thing: Can we not tell any of them that this list exists? Wonderful, thanks.